The present invention relates to an operating circuit for a discharge lamp, in particular a low-pressure discharge lamp.
Such operating circuits regularly have AC voltage generators with the aid of which an AC voltage with a specific frequency is applied to electrodes of the discharge lamp in order, on the one hand, to ignite the discharge lamp and, on the other hand, to maintain the operation after the ignition. The details of such operating circuits have been known in general for a long time and need not be explained in detail here.
In particular, it is already known to design the operating circuits such that they carry out the ignition operation with the aid of a resonant peak in a resonant circuit which is connected to the discharge lamp. For this purpose, the frequency for ignition is set to a value in the vicinity of the resonance of the resonant circuit (which value is mostly increased with reference to the continuous operating frequency to be applied later). The resonant circuit generates the voltage amplitudes required for the ignition by resonance effects.
It is already known, furthermore, to build into operating circuits for discharge lamps safety shutdown devices which are designed so as to shut down the supply power in the event of impermissibly high supply currents of the AC voltage generator. The aim of this is to avoid damage to the operating circuit and the lamp and/or to avoid risks.
Starting from the prior art as outlined, the invention is based on the problem of specifying an operating circuit improved with regard to the ignition of the discharge lamp.
To this end, according to the invention there is provided for a discharge lamp an operating circuit which has an AC voltage generator which can generate an AC supply power with different frequencies for the purpose of igniting and operating the discharge lamp, the operating circuit being designed in order to ignite the discharge lamp at a frequency at which a resonant peak of a resonant circuit connected to the discharge lamp occurs, and having a safety shutdown device which shuts down the supply power at a threshold value in the region of impermissibly high supply currents of the AC voltage generator.
By contrast with the prior art, the invention does not proceed from a permanently prescribed ignition frequency, but gradually varies the frequency, starting from an initial, presumably excessive frequency, to lower frequencies, the described safety shutdown device monitoring the supply current of the AC generator. If adequate excitation of the resonant circuit and ignition of the lamp occur during the reduction of the frequency, the resonant frequency of the resonant circuit is sharply reduced because of the change in the electric properties of the discharge lamp. An impermissibly high supply current will not then normally occur. However, should an excessively high supply current occur nevertheless as operation proceeds, it can certainly be provided according to the invention that the safety shutdown device then responds again. However, this then would essentially have nothing to do with the ignition procedure as such which is addressed by the invention.
On the other hand, should impermissibly high supply currents occur during the lowering of frequency owing to an excessively close approach to the resonant frequency of the resonant circuit (in which case the discharge lamp would then not yet have been ignited), the safety shutdown device then responds according to the invention.
It is essential for the operating circuit to be designed such that it does not now stop operating completely, for example, but rather starts a new attempt at ignition with a frequency (shutdown frequency in what follows) which is increased with reference to the frequency at which the shutdown has been performed. The invention does not stipulate in general how this is performed in detail. A variety of preferred variants are still to be outlined below. However, it is essential that the operating circuit is initially remote once again from the shutdown frequency.
The operating circuit according to the invention is therefore capable of, as it were, xe2x80x9cfeeling its wayxe2x80x9d to the resonance of the resonant circuit, the safety shutdown circuit preventing damage. This has a consequence that fluctuations in the resonant frequency do not lead to ignition interference. It is thereby possible, in particular, to greatly reduce the sensitivity of the operating circuit to interference and temporal or temperature-dependent variations in the characteristics of the various circuit constituents. This enhances the reliability, for one thing, but also has marked economic advantages owing to the reduced requirements when selecting components.
Conventional low-pressure discharge lamps are regularly connected in series with a so-called lamp inductor which is required because of the negative values, occurring in these lamps, in the derivative of the current-voltage characteristic. However, the invention is certainly not restricted to such discharge lamps. It does, however, offer great advantages in the use of lamp inductors. Specifically, one difficulty in the prior art consists in that the lamp inductor becomes saturated at specific current values. The saturation of the lamp inductor can lead to an instability in the operating circuit which cannot be tolerated. This is the main reason for the use of safety shutdown devices in conventional low-pressure discharge lamps.
The saturation current of a lamp inductor is, however, relatively strongly dependent on temperature, and so the lamp inductor must be of relatively large design as a precaution in view of possible high temperatures. The point is that it would be necessary on the other hand to generate relatively high ignition voltages with the operating circuit in order to ignite the discharge lamp given a conventionally permanently prescribed ignition frequency, in order to ensure reliable ignition even at low temperatures. The high ignition voltages are necessarily associated with relatively high lamp inductor currents. This leads overall to the fact that excessively large lamp inductors are built up for reasons of reliability and safety while not being necessary at all for most applications. This is firstly associated with disadvantages regarding overall size and overall weight of the operating circuit, and on the other hand also with cost disadvantages, of course.
Comparatively smaller lamp inductors can be constructed, however, when the function of the safety shutdown device is integrated, according to the invention, to a certain extent in the normal ignition procedure. To be precise, in the case of the invention the occurrence of safety shutdown devices in the ignition procedure does not form a problematical exceptional case which entails absence of successful ignition, but forms a procedure that is integrated in to the normal functional cycle of the operating circuit.
The operating circuit is advantageously designed such that once a shutdown has been performed following a response of the safety shutdown device, it gradually lowers the supply frequency again. In this case, it proceeds from a starting frequency that is increased with reference to the shutdown frequency. The ignition procedure then therefore has a basically iterative character.
There are two respectively advantageous preferred variants in this case:
Firstly, the operating circuit can be designed such that during the renewed attempt at ignition it lowers the frequency only down to a minimum frequency that is slightly increased with reference to the last shutdown frequency. However, in this case the safety shutdown device remains active, and therefore shuts down again, if appropriate. The minimum frequency is therefore not necessarily reached. Should a shutdown have occurred once again, the procedure is repeated, that is to say the frequency is gradually lowered againxe2x80x94specifically, if no shutdown occurs, once again only down to a frequency that is slightly increased with reference to the last, that is to say second, shutdown frequency.
In this way, the operating circuit therefore feels upward in small steps as it were, starting from a shutdown frequency once detected, to higher frequencies until a minimum frequency is found at which no further safety shutdown occurs. The ignition procedure can then be continued with this minimum frequency if the ignition has not already been performed. Owing to the prior sampling of the safety shutdown unit, the minimum frequency is at an optimized level, that is to say one that is as low as possible, and is therefore as close as possible to the resonant frequency of the resonant circuit. It is thereby possible to generate large ignition voltages without, finally, risking problematic saturations of the lamp inductor. Analogous advantages apply whenever the safety shutdown device should be provided for reasons other than of avoiding lamp inductor saturations.
The other preferred configuration provides that the minimum frequency down to which the frequency can be reduced in the absence of a safety shutdown unit remains at a specific value from the very first. Thus, when safety shutdowns already occur at this minimum frequency or at frequencies that are increased with reference thereto, these safety shutdowns are repeated iteratively. Since the safety shutdown device is to respond so quickly that damage is avoided, there is no fundamental problem in this. Thus, this gives rise to repeated injection of ignition pulses with amplitudes so high that they are repeatedly interrupted by the safety shutdown device. However, the lamp will normally be ignited because of the repetition of these ignition pulses, because preionization has already occurred in the discharge medium. Thus, given repetition of the attempts at ignition, ignition will then occur for which no further safety shutdown takes place. Both variants are represented in more detail in the exemplary embodiments.
It is preferred, furthermore, to limit the ignition procedure overall, and this can be performed according to the invention by means of a running variable. The latter is incremented during the ignition procedure as long as no ignition is performed. Should it achieve a specific maximum value before the discharge lamp ignites, the attempts at ignition are interrupted, in which case it would also be possible to generate a fault message, if appropriate. This running variable can be implemented in different ways. It could, for example, be increased by a value with each shutdown operation, or be associated with the individual frequency lowering steps provided that the frequency lowering is performed in steps. It is also possible for it to be a simple time variable.
The essential application of the invention relates to half-bridge oscillators as AC voltage generators. Such half-bridge oscillators are known per se. They have two switching transistors whose switching operation must be suitably clocked. This is preferably performed in the case of the invention by a digital control circuit which specifies the frequencies and must therefore be configured in the way according to the invention. In particular, as digital control circuit the operating circuit can have a so-called microcontroller with a microprocessor, as is illustrated in the exemplary embodiments.
The threshold value for the response of the safety shutdown device can be relatively high when said device responds with adequate speed. In particular, in the case of use of a lamp inductor it can be far above the nominal saturation current of the lamp inductor at room temperature. The result of this once again, in particular, is insensitivity to fluctuations in component parameters or in the operating or ambient temperatures. Since saturation of the lamp inductor has the effect in any case that there is a further increase in the lamp inductor current as a consequence of the temperature increase and/or of the inductance being reduced by the saturation, even a current peak not yet leading per se to the threshold value leads as a rule directly to growing current strengths which then also pass into the range of a threshold value set relatively high. For example, it is sensible to have threshold values 1.3 times, and preferably above 1.4 or above 1.5 times the nominal saturation current of the lamp inductor at room temperature. It is preferred, furthermore, for the threshold value not to be higher than 2.5 times, preferably 2 times, with particular preference 1.8 times the nominal saturation current.
The frequency of the supply power made available by the operating circuit is advantageously varied further after a successful ignition, specifically such that it is possible to regulate to a prescribed supply current. Thus, the variability, provided by the microcontroller, for example, in the operating frequency is then also advantageous for reasons independent of the ignition procedure per se.
Particularly in the case of a digital frequency operation in a digital control circuit, the gradual lowering in frequency will necessarily always take place stepwise. In order not to configure the sequence of the inventive ignition to be unnecessarily complicated, and to ensure a relatively fast sequence, the steps in the lowering of the frequency can be selected in a suitable way in this way. This frequency resolution is also therefore rationally not too fine, because it is related to the internal maximum clock frequency of the digital controller. The internal clock frequency is preferably between 10 MHz and 20 MHz. Typical operating frequencies of a half-bridge oscillator are approximately between 35 kHz and 105 kHz. The frequency resolution, that is to say the relative step width, in the case of the lowering of the frequency is therefore preferably in the range of approximately 0.2-1%.